Autograph
by Lanfir Leah
Summary: DOA2: Helena's motivation to join the Second Dead or Alive World Tournament.


**Autograph**

It was the night of the first concert after the premiere. 

Helena was sitting in front of the mirror, frowning at her appearance. She looked pale and drawn, her eyes too bright and her gaze unclear.  Even her hands were trembling. For some reason, she was terrified. It felt like a thousand butterflies were locked inside her stomach and as if they were fluttering around desperately, trying to find their way out. 

_I am nervous,_ she wondered. _Why? _

Throughout the dozens of rehearsals, and even throughout the whole worldwide premiere, when she knew that millions of eyes were upon her as she sang, she had not felt any sign of nervosity. And tonight, on the night after the premiere, she looked like a ghost. A paranoid ghost, even, she thought, irritably adding some more foundation and rouge on her pale cheekbones.

She just felt… on edge. There was this nagging feeling in the back of her mind that she had forgotten something, or that there was something tonight that wasn't supposed to be. It was like a flash of premonition, as if she remembered a nightmare or a future that had not quite come to pass yet. It felt as if there was something horribly wrong, but she could not put her finger to it. 

I need to calm my nerves. Helena turned away from the mirror, hiked up her ivory skirts, and performed some Pi Qua Quan moves to try to meditate. Flowing through her moves always seemed to put her at peace. She would let her mind blank out while her body moved around gracefully, like a dance. Here a spin, there a kick - it all turned into one fluid motion. As she worked her way through the training ritual, she felt her heart rate slow down. Her breathing evened out equally, until she found herself at peace again. 

She smoothed her skirts and her hair to turn at the mirror once more.

"Hello," said the girl that was sitting on her drawer brightly.

Helena nearly screamed. "Hello," she gasped. "How did you get in here?"

The girl grinned, and ran a hand through her violet locks. "Mm, does it matter? I came here to get your autograph." Her maroon eyes locked on Helena's. It was a flat look, as if her eyes did not mean what her mouth was saying, at all. "I'm your biggest fan," she added, cocking her head smiling sweetly.

Helena stared back for a moment. The uneasy feeling had returned, she noticed, and with a vengeance. She forced herself to smile at the pretty girl and said: "Certainly. Do you have pen and paper with you?"

"Sure." The girl dug up a photograph in the dark indigo purse that totally matched her outfit. She handed both the photograph over.

Helena noticed that the photo was taken on the night of the premiere, just before the show started. It was a promotional photo of her and her mother, the stars of the slow. They were both dressed in matching ivory ballroom dresses and identical smiles. Then she saw a familiar autograph on in the right corner. "I see you already got my mother to sign this for you…" she squinted at the name. "…Ayane, isn't it?"

Ayane nodded and smiled a false smile. "Yes, I am so happy."

For one moment Helena contemplated calling for security to take the girl away, but she figured there was no harm in just giving her what she wanted. She quickly signed with: _'To Ayane, I hope you will enjoy the show. Love, __Helena_.'__

She handed the autograph and the pen back. "Here you go."

Ayane scanned the picture. "Oh, I sure will! Enjoy the show, I mean," she said, grinning toothily. "Thank you so much! I will leave you to your meditation now. Good luck tonight- bye!" Within the second, the girl had left, leaving Helena alone to wonder about her.

She felt much more nervous now than before, and she did not know why. She was supposed to be used to this! She had dealt with her mother's fans her whole life - and they would sometimes do the strangest thing just to get close to them. Not to mention the things people did and wanted to know about her when she was revealed to be Fame Douglas' illegitimate daughter in the press.

So why had this girl had put her so on edge? She could not figure it out. It had to be stress. 

When the door opened a second time, Helena was much more prepared for it. Subconsciously, she crouched into a fighting stance... only to flush with embarrassment when she recognized her mother. "Hello, mother," she said sheepishly. 

Her mother chose not to make any notice of Helena's position. "Hello sweetie. Are you ready for the show? We should be on in fifteen minutes."

She nodded. "I am ready."

Her mother, looking almost ethereal in her expensive white dress, walked over to her and cupped Helena's face in her hands. "You look a little pale. Are you alright?"

"Just a bit startled. A purple-haired girl came to ask for my autograph. I did not hear her enter."

"Oh yes, she came to visit me a bit earlier. She said the strangest things about this being the most legendary show ever. 'They will talk about this show until eternity', she said." She laughed softly. "Isn't that strange?"

Helena frowned. "It sure is. Maybe we should inform security."

Her mother just chuckled and waved that away. "Oh sweetie, I'm sure it was nothing. You're just tense. Come, let us go near the stage already. Wouldn't want to be late!"

_At least there will be security guards there,_ Helena thought sourly. _Maybe I am just imagining things, but better to be safe than sorry_. Her sensei had always told her to trust her instincts, and that was what she was doing. She had a bad feeling about tonight.

When she stepped onto the stage and the applaud greeted her, she felt all the jittery feelings melt away like snow in sunlight. The spotlight was here, the music was here, and the audience was watching her. She began to sing, and she caught all the right notes. Her voice lifted up on the music, contemplated by her mother's deep, warm alt voice. 

Helena forgot her surroundings and surrendered to the music and the moment, indulging in the experience. At one moment her eyes caught her mother's gaze, and they smiled at each other in perfect understanding. _I live for this,_ Helena thought hazily while her voice climbed up and up with the music. Her mother's voice joined hers once more, and she could feel the appreciation and the awe radiating from the public. 

_Yes… I love this,_ she thought, happy and content until the core of her being. 

She turned to her mother in a graceful movement, to give her the rest of the solo, when a high sound whizzed past her ear. It broke her out of her singing trance. 

Then: a shot, and another.

She stumbled and fell, safely out of the line of fire. 

Two thoughts popped up in her head simultaneously: That was close and Mother!

Helena was just in time to see her mother fall, her blood splattering hotly on Helena's face as she watched on in horror. She hardly heard the screams of the audience - the whole world stilled for her as she crawled over to where her mother was lying in a pool of crimson liquid that was growing larger every heartbeat. The bullet had buried itself into her mother's chest. From the look of it, the angle had made sure it gone straight through the heart, ending up in the lung. 

"Somebody call a medic," she screamed, her voice breaking.  

Her mother drew one last shuddering breath, blue fearful eyes on Helena. "Cccold," she guttered, before her eyes rolled upwards. 

"No!" Helena screamed. "Don't die on me, mother, you are all I have!"

When the medics arrived, they were too late. They could have never saved her. No one could have. Her mother had been assassinated. Helena threw herself over her mother's lifeless body and sobbed brokenly. "I'll find out who did this, mother," she vowed, almost choking in her tears. "I'll avenge you. I promise..."


End file.
